Techniques for reducing gate induced drain leakage (GIDL) in memory devices utilizing negative wordline architectures. More specifically, a method and apparatus are provided to determine whether any of the word lines in a section of a memory array are active. If any one of the plurality of word lines is active, each of the inactive word lines in the section are coupled to a negative voltage level. If none of the plurality of word lines is active, each of the plurality of word lines is coupled to ground to reduce GIDL.